And here an unprecedented thing occurred.  The Colonel absolutely declined spirituous refreshment at the neighboring Palmetto Saloon, and declared his intention of proceeding directly to his office in the adjoining square.  Nevertheless the Colonel quitted the building alone, and apparently unarmed except for his faithful gold-headed stick, which hung as usual from his forearm.  The crowd gazed after him with undisguised admiration of this new evidence of his pluck.  It was remembered also that a mysterious note had been handed to him at the conclusion of his speech—­evidently a challenge from the State Attorney.  It was quite plain that the Colonel—­a practised duellist—­was hastening home to answer it.

But herein they were wrong.  The note was in a female hand, and simply requested the Colonel to accord an interview with the writer at the Colonel’s office as soon as he left the court.  But it was an engagement that the Colonel—­as devoted to the fair sex as he was to the “code”—­was no less prompt in accepting.  He flicked away the dust from his spotless white trousers and varnished boots with his handkerchief, and settled his black cravat under his Byron collar as he neared his office.  He was surprised, however, on opening the door of his private office to find his visitor already there; he was still more startled to find her somewhat past middle age and plainly attired.  But the Colonel was brought up in a school of Southern politeness, already antique in the republic, and his bow of courtesy belonged to the epoch of his shirt frill and strapped trousers.  No one could have detected his disappointment in his manner, albeit his sentences were short and incomplete.  But the Colonel’s colloquial speech was apt to be fragmentary incoherencies of his larger oratorical utterances.

“A thousand pardons—­for—­er—­having kept a lady waiting—­er!  But—­er—­congratulations of friends—­and—­er—­courtesy due to them—­er—­interfered with—­though perhaps only heightened—­by procrastination—­pleasure of—­ha!” And the Colonel completed his sentence with a gallant wave of his fat but white and well-kept hand.

“Yes!  I came to see you along o’ that speech of yours.  I was in court.  When I heard you gettin’ it off on that jury, I says to myself that’s the kind o’ lawyer I want.  A man that’s flowery and convincin’!  Just the man to take up our case.”

“Ah!  It’s a matter of business, I see,” said the Colonel, inwardly relieved, but externally careless.  “And—­er—­may I ask the nature of the case?”

“Well! it’s a breach-o’-promise suit,” said the visitor, calmly.

If the Colonel had been surprised before, he was now really startled, and with an added horror that required all his politeness to conceal.  Breach-of-promise cases were his peculiar aversion.  He had always held them to be a kind of litigation which could have been obviated by the prompt killing of the masculine offender—­in which case he would have gladly defended the killer.  But a suit for damages!—­damages!—­with the reading of love-letters before a hilarious jury and court, was against all his instincts.  His chivalry was outraged; his sense of humor was small—­and in the course of his career he had lost one or two important cases through an unexpected development of this quality in a jury.